Man in The High Castle

-The Fiction of Ideas

For this reading I attempted to read Man in the High Castle by Phillip K. Dick. This exercise in fictional ideas gives us an alternative history in which the Axis Powers won WW2 due to Nazi Germany developing the atomic bomb before the Allies. This fictional work deeply exercises social concepts and values throughout the story with the main setting of America being the hot spot of conflict between Japan and Germany. This share rule over America bring with it really interesting concepts and dynamics.

Although the show with the same name has the same plot points/setting in the story it starkly contrasts with the narrative. While the novel first starts with Robert Childan the show starts with the spy named Joe Blake. Although the characters and backstories are relatively the same the differences of plot and choices are significantly different. While in the show the reel tapes are the main plot object that compels much of the conflict within the story in the book it’s actually a banned novel by the name of “The Grasshopper Lies Heavy” this book in itself is a book about an alternative history in which the Allies had won WW2. This alternative history novel within an alternative history novel is very amusing as the book is self-aware of itself. While the series is more or less an alternative interpretation/fan fiction of the novel.

The novel and show itself in my opinion successfully explore the experiment and concept of what if? What if the Axis power won the war while the Allies lost?  Phillip K. dick successfully creates a believable fictional world in which American and its allies are now subject to the mercy of the totalitarian rule of both Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. With America and its culture more or less being extinct in this fictional world. What is left over is treated somewhat as a product or an accessory. American culture and materials are now an accessory, a relic to gawk at. Additional social dynamics present within the story is the real world concept of racial superiority. While this concept historically and morally unsound. Both Japan and Germany in display this concept in spades as  the Germans have nearly wiped out all the Jewish populations while Japan treats foreigners as either tools or accessories to show off to one another.